


Mapping her life

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Not Beta Read, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because they all end up in a storeroom. Even he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mapping her life

**Author's Note:**

> -It IS the Doctor's first meeting with River after the Library.
> 
> -English is not my mother tongue. I have a tendency to create words and expressions, whatever the language. My phrases are convoluted. You've been warned. After such a foreword, if you're still reading, you're adventurous. That said, feel free to correct me.

It was the TARDIS's fault. It is always the TARDIS's fault.

 

He ends up nowhere... He does not know. Is it a garage, a store away room? There are boxes, labelled in indecipherable scribbles, a workbench, covered with precision tools and books on books on books piled against the walls.

 

He resisted the urge to go back to the TARDIS and give her a piece of his mind about her inability to properly identify the area as junk shop rather than somewhen on Lepistre as she put it. Wandering through the shadows, gathering clues here and there about a strange life is much more entertaining, and he needs the distraction. He does not want right now to set off on an adventure, not after seeing them off, all at once. Does death, proper, finite, human death feel like that, losing all of them at the same time?

 

Why here, he does not know. The TARDIS must have wanted to see a dusty garage.

 

The inside of which is, as expected, pleasantly distracting. Homes are like clothes, it tells a little of what you hope to show, a little of what you hope to hide, and there is nowhere near as fun as the cupboards, the pockets. And he is in a cupboard, sort of, the cupboard of a life. A life in the fields, judging by the muddy boots and shovel in one corner. A life in books also. Topography and cartography, maps and numbers, everywhere. A life of tiny things carved or cleaned by the delicate and sharp utensils displayed on the table.

 

A huge open volumen about knots and ropes is catching all the light cast by a single grim window. He laughs at the diminutive replica of ancient Roma Colosseum that contains Perlimpinpin in powder form and marvels at the high-tech pens, pencils, quills stacked together in an absurd looking pot – it had carved upon it the head of a long-chinned proeminent-cheekboned floppy-haired infant. He is going through a pile of carefully executed, even pretty, watercolours of the Timid Nebula when he stops at the sight of a humble slip of paper pinned on scribbly notes. Gallifreyan.

 

He grabs it, trembling so slightly, scanning the scrawls. It is a boringly analytical account of the attached Gallifreyan tongue twister. He does not think twice.

 

The door leading to the house does not require any sonicing. He tiptoes out of the dark into the dark, only to remind himself to remind himself again not to wear squeaky Converse. He can make out an overture directly in front of him, probably a room, probably the kitchen, considering the shiny curves and surfaces standing out. Further left, a flight of stairs is going up, going down, anticlockwise. The corridor seems to be naturally lit from above, adorned by mirrors or framed pictures. There, a secretaire or a grand piano, a small trunk are gloomily guarding the bluest darkness, and the clicking of a gun. He freezes. He should have expected something like that.

 

'If I were you I would not...' They both begin at once.

 

Oh, you've got to be kidding me, he thinks. Of course he knows the voice.

 

‘Doctor!' The light goes on.

 

'Professor Song. Hi. I'm quite sorry. Didn't know it was your...' She comes down the stairs in her pyjamas and fluffy slippers, unfazed by the threatening weapon she is holding or the intruder she has in her sights. Her hair is a mess.

 

'...sleep,' she finishes, lightly, 'obviously. Don't make a habit of it, or if you do, head directly for the bedroom. It'll save me the trouble of going down with the Beretta.'

 

He stares. That is awful. He expected it to happen sooner or later. Rather later than sooner, much later. He even thought at some point he would get a note from his future self explaining everything. That it was a one-time accident and that he would properly meet her in the future, in the proper order, when she does not know him. He would have to feign not knowing her and, after that, everything would happen, in the proper right order. Except that, thank Heaven, he would not have to live through her death again.

 

But no.

 

She knows him and is offering him herb tea. And with that, because of that, he feels unable to pity her.

 

Ushered in the kitchen, he flops onto a chair and follows with vacant eyes her cream-coloured form hopping from one corner to another to fetch tea-necessary nothings. After their first encounter, he pushed her aside, stored in a little box inside his head, not forgotten, just filed away, like Astrid, like Solomon, all those whose paths he briefly crossed and who promptly died. He did not know them and never will, hopefully; he would not cope with the double exposure of them alive and dead. He cannot mourn every one of them, so he does not know every one of them; not thoughtlessness, self-preservation.

 

Not a choice of course, yet he tries to keep it as small as possible, the number of travelling companions who die. It is easier to fly them home, say goodbye, break their heart.

 

Now, he is given Professor River Song and she is dead, or will be. Why would anyone put oneself through it, willingly? He should write about it to his future stupid self. He can't mourn them.

 

He hardly blinks when he tastes the brand of tea he happens to favour in this incarnation. After all, she is supposed to be his effing … whatever she will be in the future. Stupid, stupid future self.

 

He also wants to hate her. He does. But he remembers. Whatever she has done, she hasn't done yet. She hasn't sweetied him, or waved the sonic in his face, or gone all sibyl on Donna, or punched him, or died.

 

He is probably glaring at the moment, because she is very quiet. Before, she didn't strike him as the shutting it type. More the live wire type.

 

Dang. He'd better watch his mouth.

 

'How are you?' she finally asks, her fingers busying themselves with the tracing of patterns on her mug.

 

Cautious, is she? She sensed he would not handle the diary well this time.

 

'Fine, fine. I've just saved the Universe from Davros, again. I should feel proud of myself, shouldn't I? But I don't, no, not really. But you probably know why. All about it. Davros and Rose and Me2 and Donna. And Donna.' He pauses, gritting his teeth and anchoring his eyes to hers.

 

'Well. Not all about her, since you didn't seem to recognise her last time.' He rejoices in that tiny little bit of spoiler he can throw at her face.

 

For a second, he catches behind her eyes two instantly dismissed reactions ; a flash of excitement that reads 'Oh, so I do get to meet Donna Noble, the most important woman in the Universe, after all' ; a break of frustration that spits 'Spoilers' ; and there, on her lips, a pit-deep sorrow whispers something like 'I'm so, so sorry'.

 

She comes back with a rather cold 'To be fair the only visual I got on her was a flavian bas relief of you two as domestic god and goddess.'

 

He crosses the arms on his chest and lifts defiantly his chin. Is she trying to put him back on the tracks, to rescale the axis of the conversation, to sidestep his spite? Because he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to play pretend by the rules, even his.

 

'Don't. Just don't.'

 

The squinting of her eyes. The narrowing of her lips. The tightening of her grip on the ceramic. He needs to crush someone he knows he will not have to save.

 

No regrets. After all, he will not face the consequences of this fit. Already has. Probably.

 

Is he always forgiven by her?

 

'I don't want small talk, I don't want banter or whatever it is you do with good old me. You explain to me...' He shushes her with a curt movement of the hand before she can protest. 'Explain what it is with those rules of yours, and supposedly mine. Because you can't expect me to carry on meeting you under Jack Pot's wings, criss-guessing my behaviour on events that have not happened yet. This,' he jabbed his index finger at the table, 'this is dangerous, timey-wobbly ground I'm treading on, pussy footing backwards on your life.'

 

She seems besotted with his words and he can now understand why. She did not expect him this 'young' and untrained. She is gently prodding her empty mug.

 

'Wrong order. The meetings I already had with you have not occurred to you yet. Vice versa. We keep track with a diary, to know where each of us...'

 

'That, I guessed. Thank you. Surely you don't need to know me well to notice I'm a bit of a genius. What's it with...'

 

She stops her finger from scaling the mug handle.

 

'It's not about knowing, it is about trusting. It's the only way it could ever work.'

 

'Well, I would kick you out of my TARDIS before I can trust you Professor Song.'

 

It escaped him. He is angry, especially with himself, generally with her.

 

Damn you, idiot, she burnt her brain for you. You trust her. She's not going to kill you, and you're already outliving her.

 

Pain runs through her eyes, yet she puts on a mischievous smile. The act she carries.

 

'I know you would, dear.'

 

He stares. Again. He will not admit it, but she is grating in an intoxicating way. There is so much he does not know when he is around her.

 

'Why are you always so not serious? How can anyone be that unserious? I must admit it is refreshing after the whole end of the world bit I seem to encounter on a regular basis. I mean, has the whole world gone completely askew for it to nearly end that often, not counting the Universe?' He taps his fingers on the table, eyes narrowed. 'Why would you act in this manner when I'm that upset? And surely you know you don't need me upset?’

 

'Because I am that not serious. You will learn. Don't make it any more difficult than it is, I doubt it's possible. I probably regretted saying what I'm about to say, but here it is: take your time to like me,' she widens her eyes, grandiose, 'or hate me – to your liking. I can't order you to appreciate what a glorious piece of womanhood you are about to embark on a journey with. Take it slowly, if needs must, I'm not your daemon, even if you fear it. I don't know how long it took, or will take, for you to trust me.' She pauses, intent. 'Just don't run away. Don't rewrite me.'

 

There is fear in her eyes. Her palms are open, same colour as the simile-wood, rosy at the tip of her fingers where she drew on the hot ceramic. She watches her hands, not him. She watches her hands, work-worn, life-worn, time-worn. There are veins and lines on those hands, like dimples and crow's feet. There is life in the hands of an archaeologist.

 

'It's always love at first sight with you. Never why, always who. It doesn't work like that with me. You live your relationships in such a turmoil of adventure, asteroids and adoration, you probably forget, sometimes, how to build it, normally,' she grimaces, 'slowly, no,' she sighs, 'without the adventure, asteroids, adoration bit,' she pinches the birth of her nose, 'no, sorry, not even that. It's complicated.'

 

He is still, very still, now absorbed in all her little gestures, little hints of life in her; the faces, the closed eyes, the hands. The corporeality of it all is staggering. Because in the end, that alone mattered. He can't blame her for dying in the future when she is alive now, and it's the best thing ever.

 

'I just hope, in the end, you deem it worthwhile. I think you did.'

 

Humans. Vibrant, relentless, driven humans. She probably just realised there is an end to her path.

 

'Did you just give me permission to kick you out of the TARDIS whenever I want?' He inquires sceptically.

 

She adopts an equally sceptic expression.

 

'I think I did,' she ponders, 'I told you I regretted saying what I said before even knowing when and where I would say it.' She shakes her head, eyebrows arched. 'Please don't overuse your newly granted privilege, when you don't know tenth of mines yet, you'll be sorry.'

 

He notices the quick widening nostrils and tightening throat that indicate the stifled yawn. She is tired. The laughter lines on her face more deeply carved, the eyes of a myopic unfocus, her posture loosened. Her hair still a mess, or perhaps it is the way it looks down.

 

'I should probably go.' He has actually finished the mug of tea, to the last drop.

 

'My students will be obliged. Well, I wouldn't be lying if I say I've been kept up all night by a Doctor and that a gun and hot beverage were involved.' She is beaming.

 

He casts an annoyed look at her and gets up.

 

'Please, tell me there is an actual chance I start liking you despite the...' He waves his hand in the air in an attempt to depict her flirtatiousness.

 

'There is.' She simply answers.

 

He is making for the kitchen door and turns back to her, hands in his pockets.

 

'I'm not sure I can trust you on this. You are somewhat biased.'

 

She is curled up on the chair, eyes glistening with fatigue and malice.

 

'See you soon'. She chases him.

 

He diverts his eyes from hers for a second before looking back.

 

'Yeah. Call me.'

 

He is in a haze, when he slips out of the kitchen, into the blue, between the artefacts of her life; the maps, the shovel - of course -, the tongue twister – he was probably the one who would bring it to her -, the books. The TARDIS is casting a gentle light on every nook and cranny of her dusty garage and he finds it awkwardly touching. He caresses her doors open and tip-typed the coordinates to the young moon. He did not know why.

 

He catches a glimpse of her on the screen, her blue-rimmed silhouette in the door frame, eyeing the ancient ship with a secret expression, enclosed by the shadows. Adventures and asteroids and adoration, indeed. 


End file.
